In Which I Awake To News Most Perilous!
“Hellfire and fury, ashes and dust! She is gone! My beautiful wife, my Astra, the queen, she is gone!”
The captain of the guard came jogging into my chambers upon hearing my howls. He found me nude on my knees in the centre of the room, fists raised to the sky. I was trembling with rage, visions of violent retribution flickering before my eyes like flames.
“Good morning your Highness. What seems to be the trouble?” asked Edgar.
Edgar was the new captain of the palace guard (the old captain got a splinter in his toe and died of sepsis) and swiftly proving to be an insufferable dunce. I made a mental note to fire him later. Out of a cannon and into a wall, ideally.
“Your queen, you cretinous villaine! She hath been stolen!”
“I see,” mused Edgar. “Are you sure she didn’t just leave?”
“Nay, oaf. Verily, I found this scrap of her dress snagged upon the window ledge!” I held up a scrap of blue and gold fabric.
“Aw, don’t worry Sire,” smiled Edgar. I waited for him to elucidate. He did not.
“Don’t- DON’T WORRY? What in all hell am I paying thee for?” I screamed, hurling a leather glove at him which, to my great satisfaction, slapped him across the forehead. “O! Woe is me.”
I collapsed on the bearskin rug and shuddered with horrible sobs. Edgar apparently found the sight of my nude convulsing a tad uncomfortable, as when I had finally finished loudly weeping and heaved myself upright, I found I was alone in the room. I hurled obscenities after my useless captain and set about smashing the room to smithereens, shrieking like a Ringwraith on a hen night.
As I was about to give the boot to an old chest of drawers, I spotted something that gave me pause: a small letter, sealed with ominous purple wax. I picked it up with trembling fingers.
“Mayhaps this be a note from mine wife’s evil abductor!” I whispered, tearing it open with my teeth.
My eyes ran greedily over the calligraphic handwriting. It read:
Let it be Knowne that this note shalle be Addressed to the ‘King’ of so-called ‘Pugglemunt’,
whom I hereby dub, a COWARDE
My eyes bulged in my head at the insult. Hands a-quake, I read on.
Dearest COWARDE,
I am Writinge to thee by means of Penne and Payper, to Convey a Message moste
Fowle and Dyvious. My name is Prince Vena, and BEHOLD! I amme in Love with thy
Wyffe, and baecos of Thys, I have Stowlyn Her awaey! Thine Spirit is Lacklustre, Thy
City is Shyt and Boering, and I do Declare that a Womin of this Caliber is not Fit for
Thee.
We shalle be Wedded under the nexte Full Moone.
Thy Wyffe is Gone with ME, and NEVER shalt thou Seest her Agayn.
For thou art, And thou Shalt always remain, A COWARDE.
Cold Regarddes to thee, COWARDE,
Prince Vena of Bloodroot
I could not believe what I had read. I stared at the paper so hard that my eyes may have burned a hole through it, had I not first screamed and collapsed in a quivering heap of boiling fury. My Queen, my darling Astra, sweet star of my life, alone in the clutches of a wicked prince!
*****
There was no time to pack. With my cheeks flushed, I threw open my wardrobe and heaved out my knapsack marked ‘PERIL’. I raced down the stairs of the royal tower and erupted into the great hall like the gleaming head of a battering ram. A cluster of foreign dignitaries were stood around awaiting the arrival of their king for the morning’s deliberations; they straightened as I burst into the hall, cloaked in fury.
“The King of Pugglemunt!” announced my herald, followed by a respectful note on her trumpet. “Please form an orderly queue to seek counsel with his Royal Highness.”
“Shut up, shut up,” I cried, plucking the trumpet from my herald’s puckered lips. I held it up to my own mouth to amplify my words.
“Dignitaries, honoured individuals, and regular Pugglemuntian ragamuffins, evil is upon us! Hark! HARK! The good Queen Astra – my queen, thy queen, our beautiful queen, though mostly mine own queen just for me – hath been stolen away by a wicked prince! We must save her! Ready the horses! Ready the men! There is not a second to waste, we must –”
“What?” said somebody at the back of the hall.
I lowered my trumpet momentarily, then raised it once more to my lips.
“I declare we must at once form a valiant company to light out after mine darling Astra, like beams of –”
“Can you hear him?” asked a short woman in a cloak.
“All I can hear is a lot of tooting,” replied a long man in a doublet.
Rage-quivering, I took the trumpet from my mouth and flung it at the nearest jester. Again I repeated my proclamation: that Astra was in danger, and that I wanted every able-bodied person in my castle clapped into a suit of armour and vaulted on top of a big angry horse in the next five minutes, or heads would not merely find themselves rolling, but pinging all over the castle.
*****
It was a bright, clear morning in Pugglemunt, and the castle drawbridge squelched happily into the mud as it was lowered.
A crowd of my idiot subjects had gathered to see me off on my journey; they didn’t even know where I was going, they just liked to see big horses ride past with purposeful looking members of the aristocracy atop them. Unfortunately, as I discovered that morning upon barging into the stables demanding the kingdom’s fastest steed, all the horses were currently under the weather with a nasty bout of swell-snout that was going around.
And so it was that, dressed in my finest armour, with my fabulous hair bouncing around my shoulders in handsome ringlets, I thundered out of the armoury, over the drawbridge, and down through the streets of my fair city riding the only animal available that I could rugby tackle, pin down and strap a saddle to: a very large, floppy eared sow named Margaret.
I will not lie to you and tell you that straddling a fat-bellied pig through streets packed with guffawing peasants was my proudest moment, but it matters not. My queen needed me. Accompanying me on my noble quest was that blasted oaf Captain Edgar, because although a powerful idiot he was the only member of my guard that managed to get dressed on time. He was riding the second-best steed available, an epileptic donkey named Alfonso.
A third member of our company rode alongside Edgar, using the last form of transport presently available; a sledge pulled by wild raccoons. He was a young mercenary called Dedmìht, and he was very handsome and charming but you shouldn’t get too fond of him because he dies very early on in this story and it’s going to be upsetting for you if you are emotionally invested in his character.
Also in tow was the pungent stable girl, Glob, who wasn’t invited along but got her arm tangled in my stirrups and, since there was no time to untie her, was compelled to run alongside my hog. Together, our mismatched quartet rode (and ran) boldly through the streets, and fortunately Glob’s body deflected many of the tomatoes thrown at us. I couldn’t help but sigh as we left the bustle of Pugglemunt behind; I had a strong suspicion that we did not have an easy journey ahead of us.
*****
My suspicion proved to be correct when, two days into our quest, we realised we had set off without first finding out where the evil Prince Vena lived, and were therefore forced to return to the city to purchase a map.